That’s what Mark Lipton, owner of Tremont Paint in the Bronx, wondered when he started carrying Mythic Paint last year. The result? “It’s probably the only line we’ve added in the past 20 years I’ve been in the business that has actually added sales,” he declared. “We have brought in second lines before and they take a little bit from your other lines or maybe add a few percentage points of margin if you pull sales from the other vendors you’re using. But Mythic has customers who are calling and asking for it.”

Initially, the sales were all in-store, but New York’s commercial building and maintenance market is starting to respond - big time. “There are now 5 or 6 health-care facilities that have opened up their purchasing processes to us which would not have spoken to us before,” Lipton stated. “These are people who buy commercial paint in good quantity, and now they have reason to talk to us.” The reason: VOCs and indoor air quality.

Tremont is also closing in on a good-sized sale to a regional transport agency. “The New York market has really taken a hit this year,” said Lipton. “Without Mythic we’d be lying in the sewer dead.”